Your time is your most valuable asset.

Everybody can make more money but nobody can make more time. {Tweet it.}

 

Since our baby arrived, Mike and I have learned – on a deeper level than before – how valuable an hour of our time is. So we’ve moved into assisted living.

In order to continue to grow our business, maintain our health, be present with our baby girl, and keep our home looking and feeling good, Mike and I have upped our outsourcing game in a big way.

When I first started my business I didn’t think I could afford to hire anyone to help me. I wasn’t making much money yet, so it was hard for me to justify paying someone else for something I knew I could do.

I quickly realized something, though:

Trying to do everything ourselves keeps us small. {Tweet it!}

 

Getting help in your life and in your business is one of the smartest ways to create a feeling of spaciousness and freedom on a daily basis. It also allows you to do bigger things than you are able to do alone.

You may have to contend with a little guilt for not being able to do everything yourself, or simply for choosing not to. You may have to deal with judgment from others about the fact that you’re not doing everything yourself.

But the ease and peace of mind you’ll feel when you get help with the tasks you aren’t good at and don’t like doing will be worth the initial discomfort.

I know I need to outsource something when:

• I could pay someone less per hour to do it than I know I can earn in an hour.

• I don’t like doing it.

• I’m not particularly good at it.

• I like doing it and I’m good at it, but I don’t want to be responsible for it all the time.

Here’s the full rundown of personal things we either outsource or automate to make our life and business run infinitely more smoothly than if we were trying to do everything ourselves:

 

• Organic food delivery: We are members of Thrive Market, which is an online market that enables us to buy non-perishable organic products for a fraction of the price we’d usually pay at Whole Foods. We save a boatload of money and time. (When you click on the coupon image below you can receive 20% off your first Thrive order!)

• House cleaning: Neither Mike nor I love to clean the house but we do love a clean house, so this one is a no-brainer.

• Meal preparation: We get healthy, locally-sourced meals from a company called WholeMade Meal Shares here in Portland.

• Errands: Heidi from Mainely Errands comes once a week and helps us with grocery shopping, picking up dry cleaning, and random things like figuring out how to remove the wax that I spilled on my jeans.

• Childcare: We have help with Penelope 10 hours a week so that Mike and I have dedicated times when we both know we can book calls and other things that require our full attention (or our full relaxation, like a massage).

• Personal styling: I use Stitch Fix every couple of months to refresh my wardrobe with new pieces that I love. It saves me time shopping because someone else picks the clothes for me based on my style profile, and it helps me push my fashion envelope.  

• Auto Order on supplements: We never have to think about re-ordering the supplements we take every day because we subscribe to them on auto order. We save money and mental space this way.

 

We also outsource a bunch of things in our business such as customer service, project management, graphic design, web programming, video editing, bookkeeping, and more.

Getting help in all these areas of our lives allows us to:

• Be as present as we can with our daughter because we have a shorter mental list of the other things we “should” be doing while we’re spending time with her. (I can’t say this list doesn’t exist. It just doesn’t have as many things on it.)

• Support the businesses of other entrepreneurs and independently employed people who do great work.

• Focus on the things we love that we’re really good at and let someone else do the rest.

The extra money we spend is worth the time and energy saved times a million.

 

OVER TO YOU:

What’s one thing you don’t love doing that you could get help with in your life or business? What’s one thing you could simplify by automating? Leave a comment below – I’d love to hear your ideas!


P.S. There’s still time to get in on the #MoneyLoveChallenge with the 11,000+ others who are creating more abundance through putting their loving attention on their money. Join the challenge for free until 2/3 at www.moneylovechallenge.com.

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